You're right though. Power given is power waiting to be revoked. The only way to keep power is to take it in the first place.
It seems to me that certain parties in the US are attempting to actively erode certain 'rights' - whether those rights are actual or percieved by the population.
It's all bollox. Code can be broken apart, their only challenge is the size of the problem, nothing more...and they have more than enough resources for the problem.
Of course it's modular, of course it can be seperated. If not then they have no business building such important tools in the first place.
All of that IE crap, 'coolbars', HTML help and the other crud that has been shipped 'with windows' in the form of IE is just a red herring.
I don't need IE if I wish to use 'HTML style' help, I don't need WMP to listen to MP3. Cut the crap guys.
They made the mess they're in and they can fix it. If not then I'm available for contract work;-)
All this petty bitching about browsers. Sharp appear to have done a good job, let's hope the petty bashing of browser 'choice' on the PDA and petty limitations don't get in the way of Lunix zealots showing support for Sharps brave move.
For goodness sake quit moaning about petty shit and get a look at the bigger picture.
If it doesn't work out for Sharp then no-one else will try it for many years. The Linux advocates better get over to Sharp and show their support by spending some of that hard earnt cash. Trust me; If you don't then a Linux PDA will be a historic monument of failure.
Agreed, in Britain we have something called Sky+. It has two sat. decoders and lets you record one channel whilst watchingpausing another. I ditched my Tivo in favour of it recently and I think it's great.
Now all they need to do is combine the best features of Tivo with the Sky+ box and they have a clear winnner.
Interactive TV in the UK is great - well, at least BSkyB seem to have it working better than most.
This would be the single biggest breakthrough. I must have a dozen or more clocks in my house and they are all set wrong/differently. I need only one to do the required 'timing' and the only one I can sync is my PC clock.
Make a central unit, get the manufacturers to agree on a standard (yes, this is the main problems) and they can all produce devices that run off the main unit or at least talk to it - is it really that difficult?
I guess it would be a PC, I guess we'd need a network but then I have a networked house but none of my devices (tivo, stereo, PCs, cooker, washing machine...) talk.
I have a timer that does the dishes and laundry during the night, I have timers in my heating system, in my tivo to record stuff and of course I have a really crappy one in my PC (and loads more). They all have different methods of being set and the only one I can control remotely is my PC.
My cooker has a great timer. Push a button and turn a dial to set it. Simple as that. Dial goes forwards and the time goes fowards, turn it back and the time goes back. Not intuitive but it works real great once you know what to do. I don't think this guy really wants a keypad, he just wants a better way. Keypads suck, I want to say "Computer, wake me at 10am with some gentle Nirvana";-)
Surely by definition a robot is just a time/labour saving device. Same as you being a cyborg because you wear a watch that enhances you supposed time keeping abilities.
Because some sci-fi writer has made your brain think that if it's not humanoid then it's not a robot doesn't make you dishwasher less of a time/labour saving device that performs a laborious task on your behalf aka a robot.
No, $100 million is a lot to spend on space.com and $20 million is too much for a domain name - you can't seriously think that $2.6m is *too* much on a nasa long-shot that *could* change our world view.
I say spend as much as you want.
I bet your "many more real projects" include such groundbreaking work like "measuring the distance between the earth and the moon down to millimetre accuracy" or "documenting the amazing variety of grass", or probably more accurately "something cool so I can run off and patent it".
...for all those spams claiming to give you n lbs weight loss in just 24hrs - finally they'll be able to back up their claims with their new anti-grav fatscales.
It's not about particle acceleration, religous wars of where to place a brace in code, or open source. It's not about linux or the latest release of WobbleProduct 0.99.02.45b or hero-worship of billg or rms.
It was (probably) amusing and/. killed it before I could help dammit.
If you can't explain it then you don't understand it.
I worked at MS, and where I worked we didn't use Source Safe. Instead it was some nasty commandline junk (called "slime" ) that was easy to break (lock everyone out). Looked like a Unix tool;)
...this is the first interesting no-geeky story for weeks and you lot have squandered it before I even had the chance to see the 404. C'mon everyone, get up and go see what's on telly so I can see this site
> No matter what you think of the man, he's like a broken record.
You mean he is very consistent in what he says and believes?
"broken record" is a way of dealing with difficult people and situations. It's what cops do: "Get out of the car"...."get out of the car". It's commonly used as a way to ensure your point isn't lost.
Next time you are struggling to get your point across use the "broken record" technique. It works really well.
Doing it on an RMS/Stallman scale is boring though - I'm sure for them and their audience.
Let me rephrase: Stallman's main goal is to challenge software companies by forcing software to become freely available to the masses, thereby destablizing or destroying the current captialistic model in place around software.
What I cannot understand is why any software developer writes for this crappy GPL. If all goes to plan then none of us would have jobs. It's no problem, I quite fancy being a pig farmer anyhoo.
I don't see him preaching about socialized health care or anything else. His arguments are mostly restricted to software.
Give him a chance and I'm sure he'll have a crack at it. Doctors and nurses working for free really is for the common good afterall
But that's exactly the problem. GPL is cutting off great swathes of professional developers because they can't (not don't want to) live with the consequences.
And it's this lack of choice that leads to the 'tons' of duplication. If GPL were really in favour of productivity and sharing then it wouldn't be so unreasonable, instead it would encourage sharing, not attempt to force it. There is a world of difference between the two.
GPL is selfish, it's a mantra reapeated with no understanding of what it actually means.
No-one bitches about lack of code from the commercial group because they don't pretend to be generous, they don't say anything is "free" and they don't try to hide behind idealistic goals. They are earning a living and making no apologies for it. Using a commercial library doesn't normally mean you need to give your code to anyone, and your code is normally *why* you are in business.
I wonder how many of the GPL advocates actually earn their living from *writing code* and how many of them are students, lecturers and, errm, 'consultants'. I bet most are the latter, with more than enough money to pursue their, almost religous, "Star Trek" crusade (yup, it's two sci-fi shows rolled into one).
If GPL is the right thing then I don't think lecturers and consultants should be paid for what they do either, afterall, passing on their knowledge is the best thing for mankind. Let's talk about farmers next, I mean, they don't actually 'own' the land so how can they 'own' the produce...
I'll work for free providing my needs, and the needs of my family, are met.
IMO The people that argue so vocally about wanting GPL software are those that either: a) have yet to get into the real world b) have yet to pay their own bills c) have yet to actually create something d) all of the above
The logical end result: Student goes to school to learn CS, whilst there creates OS(GPL) project and puts another closed source business on the edge. Student leaves school and moans about lack of gainful employment. Student realises after all the years of schooling that the only thing learned is how to kill the goose that lays the the golden eggs. Student practices "want fries with that" and "wanna go large" while thumbing the stuations vacant.
It also seems to me that those truly vocal already have a career of being vocal. Their hacking days a distant memory with no need to now live from software creations, instead just a need to be ever more vocal.
You want to give your code out to the world. You also want the world to give back any mods. I think that's great and I'd love that too. I'm a rather slick coder and my design skills are pretty good so we will all do well from the arrangement.
I *want* to use your code and I *want* to see it improve. If it's well written and well designed then it will have patches applied that reflect that.
But you want me to give my project to the world if I use your project.
This is grossly unfair and I choose to not use your code because of it, you have removed a choice and created more work for everyone.
Releasing my code would give an unfair advantage to my competitors. It would also reduce my income down to nil because charging for my service would be crazy since I designed my product to require very little support - I also have ongoing costs not related to developing software, these are fixed costs not related to user numbers so where would the money for that come from...and without it the software is useless.
There is no way I can currently release my code as OS.
So has your code improved? Not from me and not from the army of developers like me. I'm pretty sure that closed source developers outnumber open source developers so why have you alienated them I wonder.
Believe me when I say that commercial software houses *would* give back mods and anything *not* related to their core business *if* they could use the open source. I've worked on some cool in-house projects that many developers could have had great benefit from, but the licencing and infrastructure isn't there. It's hard to convince a corp to give when they get nothing in return - it's impossible to convince them to go for GPL when their competitors aren't.
But you won't let them because they don't want to join the GPL club. If not GPL then nothing.
I think it's a shame, it wastes millions of man-hours of development and reduces software quality overall. Change the licence and everyone benefits.
GPL is selfish and narrow minded, time for it to move over so the software development community can work together a little more. What would be nice is if Mr Stallman 'invented' the next phase - might make it seem a little less like a religous fruitcake;-)
If the GPL people were truly in a 'giving' mood then they'd give and ask for nothing in return. Instead they remove freedom. They themselves are working against productivity by removing a choice that many developers would love to take were it not for having to eat and pay bills.
The whole point to GPL is to *encourage* source sharing. However, it oversteps the mark by *forcing* sharing. Choice is removed whichever way you look at it.
I'd like to see an alternative. I'd use GPL code, and might therefore be encouraged to share more, if it wasn't so restrictive.
I saw one licence (was it mySQL) that grants either a GPL or commercial(pay) licence. I kinda like this but then we are back on the honor system (which we know doesn't work because of the vast army of dishonorable people out there).
And yes, I do consider GPL to be a disease, a cancer that simply grows, the logical end result being death of the host.
If you want to give then go ahead (and I do), but please do it on a less restrictive license.
Slashdot Mirror
Those that can't do, teach?
You're right though. Power given is power waiting to be revoked. The only way to keep power is to take it in the first place.
It seems to me that certain parties in the US are attempting to actively erode certain 'rights' - whether those rights are actual or percieved by the population.
Thank goodness I don't have DMCA where I live.
It's all bollox. Code can be broken apart, their only challenge is the size of the problem, nothing more...and they have more than enough resources for the problem.
;-)
Of course it's modular, of course it can be seperated. If not then they have no business building such important tools in the first place.
All of that IE crap, 'coolbars', HTML help and the other crud that has been shipped 'with windows' in the form of IE is just a red herring.
I don't need IE if I wish to use 'HTML style' help, I don't need WMP to listen to MP3. Cut the crap guys.
They made the mess they're in and they can fix it. If not then I'm available for contract work
Take a perfectly OK looking product and make it look like cheap crap (cheaper crap?).
It's a waste of time to do it and it's a waste of time for me to discuss it...
Why not stick to the equally pointless excerise of customising your car.
No more case mods *please*.
All this petty bitching about browsers. Sharp appear to have done a good job, let's hope the petty bashing of browser 'choice' on the PDA and petty limitations don't get in the way of Lunix zealots showing support for Sharps brave move.
For goodness sake quit moaning about petty shit and get a look at the bigger picture.
If it doesn't work out for Sharp then no-one else will try it for many years. The Linux advocates better get over to Sharp and show their support by spending some of that hard earnt cash. Trust me; If you don't then a Linux PDA will be a historic monument of failure.
Agreed, in Britain we have something called Sky+. It has two sat. decoders and lets you record one channel whilst watchingpausing another. I ditched my Tivo in favour of it recently and I think it's great.
Now all they need to do is combine the best features of Tivo with the Sky+ box and they have a clear winnner.
Interactive TV in the UK is great - well, at least BSkyB seem to have it working better than most.
This would be the single biggest breakthrough. I must have a dozen or more clocks in my house and they are all set wrong/differently. I need only one to do the required 'timing' and the only one I can sync is my PC clock.
;-)
Make a central unit, get the manufacturers to agree on a standard (yes, this is the main problems) and they can all produce devices that run off the main unit or at least talk to it - is it really that difficult?
I guess it would be a PC, I guess we'd need a network but then I have a networked house but none of my devices (tivo, stereo, PCs, cooker, washing machine...) talk.
I have a timer that does the dishes and laundry during the night, I have timers in my heating system, in my tivo to record stuff and of course I have a really crappy one in my PC (and loads more). They all have different methods of being set and the only one I can control remotely is my PC.
My cooker has a great timer. Push a button and turn a dial to set it. Simple as that. Dial goes forwards and the time goes fowards, turn it back and the time goes back. Not intuitive but it works real great once you know what to do. I don't think this guy really wants a keypad, he just wants a better way. Keypads suck, I want to say "Computer, wake me at 10am with some gentle Nirvana"
Surely by definition a robot is just a time/labour saving device. Same as you being a cyborg because you wear a watch that enhances you supposed time keeping abilities.
Because some sci-fi writer has made your brain think that if it's not humanoid then it's not a robot doesn't make you dishwasher less of a time/labour saving device that performs a laborious task on your behalf aka a robot.
Market leaders, great products, massive customer loyalty - all lost to an inferior product over a relatively short space of time.
"inefficient" doesn't begin to describe the absolute supidity of Apple over the last two decades.
No, $100 million is a lot to spend on space.com and $20 million is too much for a domain name - you can't seriously think that $2.6m is *too* much on a nasa long-shot that *could* change our world view.
I say spend as much as you want.
I bet your "many more real projects" include such groundbreaking work like "measuring the distance between the earth and the moon down to millimetre accuracy" or "documenting the amazing variety of grass", or probably more accurately "something cool so I can run off and patent it".
Get some perspective, and maybe some *daylight*.
...for all those spams claiming to give you n lbs weight loss in just 24hrs - finally they'll be able to back up their claims with their new anti-grav fatscales.
It's not about particle acceleration, religous wars of where to place a brace in code, or open source. It's not about linux or the latest release of WobbleProduct 0.99.02.45b or hero-worship of billg or rms.
/. killed it before I could help dammit.
It was (probably) amusing and
If you can't explain it then you don't understand it.
I worked at MS, and where I worked we didn't use Source Safe. Instead it was some nasty commandline junk (called "slime" ) that was easy to break (lock everyone out). Looked like a Unix tool ;)
dog food? Nah.
if it was "New Technology" then the Win2K startup, oddly, says "built on New Technology technology" ;)
It's not important where ideas come from, what's important is that we do indeed build on them. (*)
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Sir Isaac Newton
* - Patents aside I guess
...this is the first interesting no-geeky story for weeks and you lot have squandered it before I even had the chance to see the 404. C'mon everyone, get up and go see what's on telly so I can see this site
Oh yeah, right up until someone says "so, I like it, but how are we all making money from it"...
he's done a lot to change the world
Maybe your tiny world has been changed by this narrow minded moron, but my world hasn't changed.
> No matter what you think of the man, he's like a broken record. You mean he is very consistent in what he says and believes?
"broken record" is a way of dealing with difficult people and situations. It's what cops do: "Get out of the car"...."get out of the car". It's commonly used as a way to ensure your point isn't lost.
Next time you are struggling to get your point across use the "broken record" technique. It works really well.
Doing it on an RMS/Stallman scale is boring though - I'm sure for them and their audience.
As homer says "Change the channel Marge".
I'm sure he's not a fool but he sure does look pretty follish from time to time.
Let me rephrase: Stallman's main goal is to challenge software companies by forcing software to become freely available to the masses, thereby destablizing or destroying the current captialistic model in place around software.
What I cannot understand is why any software developer writes for this crappy GPL. If all goes to plan then none of us would have jobs. It's no problem, I quite fancy being a pig farmer anyhoo.
I don't see him preaching about socialized health care or anything else. His arguments are mostly restricted to software.
Give him a chance and I'm sure he'll have a crack at it. Doctors and nurses working for free really is for the common good afterall
But that's exactly the problem. GPL is cutting off great swathes of professional developers because they can't (not don't want to) live with the consequences.
And it's this lack of choice that leads to the 'tons' of duplication. If GPL were really in favour of productivity and sharing then it wouldn't be so unreasonable, instead it would encourage sharing, not attempt to force it. There is a world of difference between the two.
GPL is selfish, it's a mantra reapeated with no understanding of what it actually means.
No-one bitches about lack of code from the commercial group because they don't pretend to be generous, they don't say anything is "free" and they don't try to hide behind idealistic goals. They are earning a living and making no apologies for it. Using a commercial library doesn't normally mean you need to give your code to anyone, and your code is normally *why* you are in business.
I wonder how many of the GPL advocates actually earn their living from *writing code* and how many of them are students, lecturers and, errm, 'consultants'. I bet most are the latter, with more than enough money to pursue their, almost religous, "Star Trek" crusade (yup, it's two sci-fi shows rolled into one).
If GPL is the right thing then I don't think lecturers and consultants should be paid for what they do either, afterall, passing on their knowledge is the best thing for mankind. Let's talk about farmers next, I mean, they don't actually 'own' the land so how can they 'own' the produce...
I'll work for free providing my needs, and the needs of my family, are met.
IMO The people that argue so vocally about wanting GPL software are those that either:
a) have yet to get into the real world
b) have yet to pay their own bills
c) have yet to actually create something
d) all of the above
The logical end result:
Student goes to school to learn CS, whilst there creates OS(GPL) project and puts another closed source business on the edge. Student leaves school and moans about lack of gainful employment. Student realises after all the years of schooling that the only thing learned is how to kill the goose that lays the the golden eggs. Student practices "want fries with that" and "wanna go large" while thumbing the stuations vacant.
It also seems to me that those truly vocal already have a career of being vocal. Their hacking days a distant memory with no need to now live from software creations, instead just a need to be ever more vocal.
What you suspect and reality are worlds apart.
So much contra-argument!
;-)
You want to give your code out to the world. You also want the world to give back any mods. I think that's great and I'd love that too. I'm a rather slick coder and my design skills are pretty good so we will all do well from the arrangement.
I *want* to use your code and I *want* to see it improve. If it's well written and well designed then it will have patches applied that reflect that.
But you want me to give my project to the world if I use your project.
This is grossly unfair and I choose to not use your code because of it, you have removed a choice and created more work for everyone.
Releasing my code would give an unfair advantage to my competitors. It would also reduce my income down to nil because charging for my service would be crazy since I designed my product to require very little support - I also have ongoing costs not related to developing software, these are fixed costs not related to user numbers so where would the money for that come from...and without it the software is useless.
There is no way I can currently release my code as OS.
So has your code improved? Not from me and not from the army of developers like me. I'm pretty sure that closed source developers outnumber open source developers so why have you alienated them I wonder.
Believe me when I say that commercial software houses *would* give back mods and anything *not* related to their core business *if* they could use the open source. I've worked on some cool in-house projects that many developers could have had great benefit from, but the licencing and infrastructure isn't there. It's hard to convince a corp to give when they get nothing in return - it's impossible to convince them to go for GPL when their competitors aren't.
But you won't let them because they don't want to join the GPL club. If not GPL then nothing.
I think it's a shame, it wastes millions of man-hours of development and reduces software quality overall. Change the licence and everyone benefits.
GPL is selfish and narrow minded, time for it to move over so the software development community can work together a little more. What would be nice is if Mr Stallman 'invented' the next phase - might make it seem a little less like a religous fruitcake
If the GPL people were truly in a 'giving' mood then they'd give and ask for nothing in return. Instead they remove freedom. They themselves are working against productivity by removing a choice that many developers would love to take were it not for having to eat and pay bills.
The whole point to GPL is to *encourage* source sharing. However, it oversteps the mark by *forcing* sharing. Choice is removed whichever way you look at it.
I'd like to see an alternative. I'd use GPL code, and might therefore be encouraged to share more, if it wasn't so restrictive.
I saw one licence (was it mySQL) that grants either a GPL or commercial(pay) licence. I kinda like this but then we are back on the honor system (which we know doesn't work because of the vast army of dishonorable people out there).
And yes, I do consider GPL to be a disease, a cancer that simply grows, the logical end result being death of the host.
If you want to give then go ahead (and I do), but please do it on a less restrictive license.